20May14

Top German Nazi-hunter readies Majdanek death camp cases

Prosecutors in Germany will soon get files on former guards at a Nazi death
camp who could still be charged for their role in the Holocaust, the country's
top war-crimes investigator said on Tuesday, although he added that lack of
evidence will keep many of the cases from going to trial.

"These investigations are largely completed," Kurt Schrimm, the head of the
Central Office for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes, told reporters.
In the next two weeks, he said, the files will be handed over to prosecutors,
who will then decide whether to press charges.

"With a few exceptions, most of them won't lead to investigations by
prosecutors," he said. Although many of the suspects are still alive, their cases
might not get to trial "because the proof is too thin."

Tens of thousands of Jews and other victims were killed at the camp,
Majdanek, near Lublin in what is today Poland.

An international military tribunal put some of the top Nazi leaders on trial soon
after World War Two in the Nuremburg Trials, but Germany has a patchy
record on prosecuting Nazis - Schrimm's office was not founded until 1958.

A landmark conviction in Munich in 2011 of John Demjanjuk, a guard at the
Sobibor death camp, gave impetus to a new wave of investigations.
Demjanjuk was the first Nazi war criminal to be convicted in Germany for
being a guard at a death camp, without evidence of a specific crime or a
victim.

The Demjanjuk conviction was not legally binding, because he was trying to
appeal it when he died in 2012, but Schrimm is convinced that his
investigations are on firm legal ground.

Since that ruling, investigators have been examining files on former Auschwitz
guards and Schrimm's office has recommended that charges be pursued
against 30 suspects across Germany.

Schrimm said he had no information on progress in these cases, which are
being pursued by the authorities in some 11 federal states, but he did not
expect many of them to get to court, given the age and health of many of the
suspects. At least three of them may be women, he said.

Schrimm, who has headed the Office for the last 14 years, said he would
continue his work, seven decades after the end of World War Two and the
Holocaust.

"We are not finished with Auschwitz. I am convinced that further names will
come up from Auschwitz in the coming months," said Schrimm, who does not
like to be called a Nazi-hunter.

Although it has given prosecutors the results of 7,472 preliminary
investigations, Schrimm regrets that his organization is not able to make
prosecutions itself. He also feels it was set up too late.

"With the benefit of hindsight, mistakes were made. We could have done
better work, but overall I would say our work has been successful," he said,
adding the office had a role as long as there was a possibility of criminal
proceedings.

[Source: By Madeline Chambers, Reuters, Berlin, 20May14]

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